A History of the Roman World

by Scullard, H. H.

  9 WAR MOTIVES. Rome’s difficulty in maintaining a balance of power: see De Sanctis, SR, III, i, 101. Popular leaders; T. Frank, CAH, vii, 670 f. If, in line with the Philinus treaty, Rome had obligations not to intervene in Sicily, no reference to this would be likely to be enshrined in the work of Fabius; and the official account current in Polybius’ day would not paint Rome as a treaty-breaker. If Polybius found any such reference in his pro-Carthaginian sources it would automatically be rejected together with the Philinus treaty. See also F. Hampl, ANRW, I, i, 412 ff. A. Heuss (Hist. Zeitschrift, 1949, 457 ff.) (= Der erste punische Krieg, edn 3, (1970) believed that Carthage had no hostile designs on Italy, and that by intervening at Messana the Romans would face Syracuse rather than the Carthaginians as their primary enemy. In line with this J. Molthagen has argued (Chiron, 1975, 89 ff.) that the Romans feared the expanding interest of Syracuse (not of Carthage) in southern Italian affairs: at first the war was essentially between Syracuse and Rome, and only in the winter of 263/2, when the Romans showed that they did not intend to leave Sicily, did the Carthaginians take effective hostile action. This was not the view of Polybius and it can hardly be doubted that the Romans did declare war on Carthage in 264.

  10 THE OUTBREAK OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. The part played by C. Claudius, a military tribune, is doubted by some: cf. Walbank, Polybius, i, 61. Polybius (1, 11, 11) places the embassy sent by Appius Claudius after his arrival in Sicily, but see Diodorus xxiii, 1, 3 (cf. Livy, xxxi, 1, 4). Ennius refers bluntly to the fact: ‘Appius indixit Karthaginiensibus’. T. Frank suggests that Claudius went beyond the Senate’s wishes and was for this reason denied a triumph: but the Senate showed no sloth in prosecuting the war, and it is not certain that the tradition of Claudius’ success is correct: see next note. On the problems of the formal declaration of war see J. W. Rich, Declaring War in the Roman Republic (Collection Latomus, vol. 149; 1976), 119 ff.

  Basic for the study of the Punic Wars are Walbank, Polybius, i, and De Sanctis, SR iii. Two general accounts are D. R. Dudley, Rome against Carthage (1971) and R. M. Errington, The Dawn of Empire: Rome’s Rise to World Power (1972).

  11 APPIUS CLAUDIUS. Polybius records that Claudius’ two engagements were successful and that afterwards he marched against Syracuse; this march is probably a doublet of that of Valerius in 263 (Beloch, Griech. Gesch., IV, ii, 533 ff.). Polybius rejects the account of Philinus, according to whom the two Roman engagements were unsuccessful, because he cannot explain the retreat of the Syracusans on this evidence. Polybius’ authority is not unimpeachable: he admittedly gives only a sketch of the First Punic War. Probably both sides claimed the victory and the issue was uncertain. The suggestion of De Sanctis (SR. III, i, 109 ff.) that Hiero did not retreat till 263 when faced by the increased forces of Rome is attractive; the failure of Claudius would explain much: the Senate’s displeasure with him, the discontent of the people at the conduct of the war, and the reason why it was his successor Valerius that won the title ‘Messalla’ (the first Roman to adopt such a ‘triumphal’ place name).

  12 THE TWO NAVIES, (a) Speed of Roman construction. The timbers of the Punic ship found off Marsala (see e below) were numbered by letters and suggest mass-production. The keel was of maple, the ribs of oak and the planking of pine; it was carvel built, i.e the outside planks were assembled first and the ribs inserted afterwards; the hull was covered with lead sheeting and the ram with bronze. A bag of cannabis was found, suggesting the need to relieve the hardships of rowing, (b) Triremes and quinqueremes. W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments (1930), held that the trireme did not have three banks of oars, but oars in groups of three, with one man to each oar; the quinquereme had five men to each out-rigged oar, but like the trireme only one bank of oars. Against this view of the trireme is that of J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams (Greek Oared Ships, 900–322 BC (1968), 169 ff.) who believe that it was rowed by oarsmen at three levels (cf. Morrison, Mariner’s Mirror, 1941, 14 ff., Cl. Qu., 1947, 122). A less probable arrangement for the quinquereme is a group of three men to an upper oar and two to a lower. (c) The corvus. Tarn (op. cit., 149) believes that the corvus, as described by Polybius (i, 22) would have caused a quinquereme to turn turtle: it was rather an improved grapnel. Per contra J. H. Thiel (Studies on the History of Roman Sea-power (1954), 432 ff.) argues that the ‘crow’ was a boarding-bridge, that its use was abandoned between 255 and 249 because of the resultant naval losses suffered through storms, and that its revival was impossible when a lighter type of quinquereme was built from 242 onwards; see also H. T. Wallinga, The Boarding-bridge of the Romans (1956). (d) Size of fleets. See Tarn, JHS, 1907, 48 ff. and Thiel, op. cit.; there was a tradition that by a supreme effort Carthage could raise 200 vessels, and this is probably correct; the limitation would be imposed by the difficulty of raising crews, not of building ships, (e) Surviving ships. A Punic warship has recently been found off Marsala in western Sicily and has been ‘excavated’; see H. Frost, Int. J. Naut. Arch., 1972, 113 ff., Mariner’s Mirror, 1973, 229 f. A Roman mid-third-century ship has been found off Terrasini, west of Palermo; it contained amphorae, but also two Roman swords (a merchantman with a military guard aboard or a troop transport?): see V. Giustolisi, Le navi romane di Terrasini (Palermo, 1975). (f) Early representations. The prow of a ship became the normal type of the obverse of the Roman bronze coinage, which was probably first issued between 260 and 235; it may have commemorated a specific battle or Rome’s naval success in the war as a whole. A Punic ship is depicted on the coinage issued by the Carthaginians (Mago?) in Spain (see, e.g., Scullard, Scipio Africanus (1970), pl. 14).

  13 DUILIUS. An imperial copy of the laudatory inscription on the column still survives (Dessau, ILS, 65). Both it and the Fasti Triumphales imply that the liberation of Segesta preceded the battle of Mylae; Polybius and Zonaras invert the order. The Carthaginian naval defeat recorded by Polybius (i, 21, 11) might be a doublet of the battle of Mylae (from Philinus’ account).

  14 ECNOMUS. The formation of the Roman fleet is uncertain. Polybius says that it advanced in wedge shape, the first two lines forming the spearhead, the second two forming a double base to the triangle. This formation is accepted by Kromayer (Atlas, col. 15), but is rejected by De Sanctis (SR, III, i, 140 f.) and Tarn (Hellenistic Military Developments, 151) who says that it is ‘quite impossible; no captains, let alone Roman captains, could have kept station. What happened was that the Roman centre pressed forward.’ If the first two squadrons sailed in line ahead and then deployed into line abreast, or if they sailed in line abreast and then advanced with all speed, so that the swifter ships of the centre got ahead of the wings – then, in either case, from the enemy’s point of view they would appear in wedge-shape formation. See further, Walbank, Polybius, i, 83 ff.

  15 REGULUS. The story that Regulus was later sent on parole to Rome to negotiate, that he refused to advise the Senate to accept conditions and returned voluntarily to Carthage to suffer torture and death, became a national epic (see e.g. Horace, Odes, iii, 5) but its historicity is doubtful. It could have been invented to counterbalance the story that he died in captivity and that his widow tortured some Carthaginian prisoners in Rome: the barbarity of the Carthaginians was invented to exculpate the barbarity of this Roman matron. T. Frank (Cl. Phil., 1926, 311 ff.), however, defends the peace mission, and although Polybius almost certainly did not know the Regulus story, it is as least as old as the annalist Sempronius Tuditanus (Aul. Gell., NA, vii, 4, 1) who was quaestor in 145 and consul in 129; according to him the embassy was concerned only with an exchange of prisoners, though Livy (epit., xviii) adds peace. If the story was completely without foundation, would a man of affairs like Sempronius have recorded it? The history of the ‘Regulus legend’ is discussed by E. R. Mix, Marcus Atilius Regulus, Exemplum Historicum (1970).

  16 NAVAL NUMBERS. See W. W. Tarn, JHS, 1907, 48 ff. At the Hermaean Promontory Polybius gives: Roman fleet 350, Romans capture 114; this does not square with his account of the losses o
ff Camerina. Diodorus says that the Romans captured 24; this, however, would involve accepting Polybius’ figures of 350 for the Roman fleet, which is on other grounds thought to be too high. In the storm it is suggested by T. Frank (CAH, vii, 685) that 15 per cent of Italy’s able-bodied men went down. This stupendous figure however, presupposes that all the rowers were free men.

  17 METELLUS AND THE ELEPHANTS. On the date see M. G. Morgan, Cl. Qu., 1972, 121 ff. After the battle Metellus transported, with difficulty, the captured elephants to Rome, where they were displayed in the Circus, thus giving the Roman people their first sight of African elephants (those of Pyrrhus having been Indian). Thereafter the Caecilii Metelli adopted the elephant as a kind of family badge, which was often used on coins issued by members of the family who became mint-masters. See H. H. Scullard, The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (1974), 151 f.

  18 HEIRKTE. The site of Heirkte has been sought on Mte Pellegrino, just north of Palermo, or Mte Castellaccio to the west; De Sanctis (SR, III, i, 181) argues for the former, Kromayer, Schlachtfelder III, i, 4 ff. for the latter. V. Giustoli, Le navi romane di Terrasini e l’avventura di Amilcare sul Monte Heirkte (Palermo, 1975), has found traces of a camp on Monte Pecoraro (west of Mte Castellaccio), with associated pottery of the first half of the third century; this he suggests was Heirkte.

  19 ROME’S ALLIES. It is noteworthy that in 242 despite wartime difficulties Rome allowed two of her foederati in Italy (Naples and Elea) and two Sicilian cities to receive invitations to a festival of Asclepius in Cos: see H. Bengtson, Historia, iii (1954–5), 456 ff.

  VIII THE ENTR’ACTE

  1 PROVINCIAL LAND. See T. Frank, JRS, 1927, 141 ff., who shows that no theory of state ownership of provincial land was recognized till after the reign of Claudius. Although the lawyer Gaius asserted that the dominium in all provincial soil was vested in the Roman people or the emperor, this was a late theory and had little practical importance: cf. A. H. M. Jones, JRS, 1941, 26 ff. (= Studies in Roman Government and Law (1960), 141 ff.). On the Lex Hieronica and the taxation of Sicily see especially J. Carcopino, La Loi de Hiéron et les Romains (1919).

  2 THE TRUCELESS WAR. Polybius (iii, 75 ff.) gives a full account, on which Flaubert based his vivid historical novel, Salammbô. The mercenaries in effect established a separate state, since they issued a considerable coinage, including gold (see E. S. G. Robinson, Num. Chron., 1943, 1 ff.; 1953, 27 ff.; 1956, 9 ff.; Jenkins and Lewis, Carthaginian Gold and Electrum Coins (1963), 43); after using Carthaginian types, they invented their own: Head of Hercules/Prowling lion, inscribed ‘of the Libyans’. The site of Prione is uncertain: Veith, Schlachtfelder, III, ii, 550 ff., located it near Sidi Jedidi not far from Hammanet, but this is doubtful. The site too of the final battle is unknown: Polybius, whose account is pro-Barcid, deals summarily with the campaign in which Hanno took a prominent part.

  3 WAR ON SARDINIA. On the adaptation of the fetial procedure for the declaration of war against overseas enemies see F. W. Walbank, Cl. Phil., 1949, 15 ff. and J. W. Rich, Declaring War in the Roman Republic, Collection Latomus, vol. 149 (1976).

  4 ROMAN PRETEXT. Cf. Appian, Lib., 5; Iber., 4 and Polybius, iii, 28, 3; this tradition may derive from Fabius, while the censure of Rome which Polybius repeats may come from the writer who continued the work of Philinus.

  5 REFORM OF THE COMITIA CENTURIATA. This reform is described by Cicero (de rep., ii), Livy (i, 43, 12) and Dionysius (iv, 21, 3), but much remains obscure, especially regarding its nature, purpose and date.

  (a) Nature. Either the centuries remained at 193 or else all 5 classes were made into 70 centuries, giving (with equites, etc.) 373 centuries. Mommsen, who believed in 373 centuries, thought that they were grouped into 193 ad hoc voting units. His view has received some support from the discovery of the Tabula Hebana, which shows that such a system could work (cf. G. Tibiletti, Athenaeum, 1949, 223 ff.); this document, a rogatio of AD 19 in honour of Germanicus, found at Heba (Magliano) in Etruria, shows that under Augustus temporary voting groups called centuries were formed from 33 tribes in an assembly of senators and equites which took part in the electoral process for appointing consuls and praetors. But that is not to say that the reformed Comitia in the third century did work in the way that Mommsen envisaged: see E. S. Staveley (AJPhil., 1953, Historia, 1956, 112 ff, Greek and Roman Voting and Elections (1972), 126 ff.) who rejects the 373 centuries, discusses recent views and argues that the coordination of centuries with tribes was neither confined to the first class nor extended to all five classes, but was applied in the first and second class, with the abolition of the distinction between seniores and iuniores in the second class. J. J. Nichols and L. R. Taylor (AJPhil, 1956, 225 ff., 1957, 337 ff., Roman Voting Assemblies (1966), 87 ff.), however, have supported Tibiletti and Mommsen’s general position. For a brief summary of the evidence see Walbank, Polybius, i (1957), 683 ff.

  (b) Purpose. This has been regarded by many as democratic: thus Mommsen saw the hand of Flaminius behind it (cf. E. Schönbauer, Historia, 1953–4, 31 ff.). But if this was the purpose, the result was not democratic (cf. De Sanctis, III, i, 344), since inter alia the Fasti show that in the later third century the nobilitas strengthened rather than relaxed its hold upon affairs. Thus some would argue that the reform was promoted by the nobility to restrict the influence of the wealthy trader who was enrolled in the urban tribes (so E. S. Staveley, A J A, 1953). Cf. L. R. Taylor (AJPhil., 1957), who believes that the nobility found the tribes easier to manipulate than the centuries: hence the reform in their interest.

  (c) Date. Fresh light may be afforded by an inscription from Brindisi, an elogium which records the achievements of someone who ‘primus senatum legit et comiti [a ordinavit],’ apparently in the consulship of Aemilius Barbula (and Iunius Pera) in 230; if so, the subject may be Q. Fabius Maximus who was censor in 230 (cf. G. Vitucci, Riv. Fil., 1953, 42 ff.), and the reference may be to the reform of the Comitia Centuriata. There is, however, the possibility that the subject was a local magistrate of the Latin colony of Brundisium who was concerned with the local constitution (so E. Gabba, Athenaeum, 1958, 90 ff.; cf. T. R. S. Broughton, MRR, Suppl., 1960, 2) and that therefore the inscription has no bearing upon the Comitia at Rome.

  6 FLAMINIUS. On his career see K. Jacobs, Gaius Flaminius (1938, written in Dutch), and Z. Yavetz, Athenaeum, 1962, 325 ff. De Sanctis (SR, iii, i, 334) argued that Flaminius was responsible for a law limiting the amount of public land to be held by an individual and that the agrarian Lex Licinia of 367 was merely an anticipation of this. But see p. 479 n. 1.)

  7 TELAMON. For the site of the battle and finds in the district see P. Sommella, Antichi campi di battaglia in Italia (1967), 11 ff.

  8 MARCELLUS. Polybius’ account (ii, 34) is pro-Scipionic and the danger which Scipio incurred is minimized; for the part played by Marcellus see Plutarch, Marcell., 7. Was Scipio’s advance any less dangerous than that of Flaminius which the aristocratic tradition so heartily condemns?

  9 ROME AND GREECE. Polybius, ii, 12, 8. The alleged Roman treaty with Rhodes in 306, her alliance with Apollonia in 266, and her intervention on behalf of Acarnania in 239 may all be dismissed as fictitious. See M. Holleaux, Rome, la Grèce et les monarchies hellénistiques (1921) and CAH, vii, 822 ff. General contacts had of course existed intermittently since Etruscan times, but not specific political commitments. See F. W. Walbank, JRS, 1963, 2 f.

  10 ILLYRIA. See Polybius, ii, 2–12; iii, 16, 18–19 and Walbank, Polybius, i, ad loc. On Illyrian piracy see H. J. Dell, Historia, 1967, 344 ff. On Roman policy, Holleaux, op. cit. above, E. Badian, PBSR, 1952 (= Studies in Greek and Roman History (1964), 1 ff.), N. G. L. Hammond, JRS, 1968, 1 ff., K. E. Petzold, Historia, 1971, 199 ff., P. S. Derow, Phoenix, 1973, 118 ff.

  11 THE ILLYRIAN SETTLEMENT. The legal position of the Greek towns is doubtful. They were not dediticii, enjoying libertas precaria, as Holleaux (CAH, vii, 836). De Sanctis (SR, iii, i, 301) believed that Issa, Dyrrhachium and Apollonia were recognized a
s allies, Issa having a foedus aequum, and Corcyra being immunis et libera. But see E. Badian, PBSR, 1952, 72 ff.: all were free amici, with no treaties, and extra-legal clientela of Rome.

  12 ROMAN POLICY. Holleaux (CAH, vii, 837 ff.) has rejected the view that the Romans formed an imperialistic policy against Macedon or even that they negotiated in Greece as a precaution against Macedon. His views have been widely accepted. However, N. G. L. Hammond (JRS, 1968, 1 ff.) has revived the view of Rome as imperialistic and anti-Macedonian: at the end of the first war Roman control in Illyria was not dictated by revenge or anti-piratical desires, but to gain power there, and Rome was careful to send embassies to Macedon’s enemies, the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues and not to Macedon; a cold war was developing. It is hardly to be expected that Macedon would smile on Rome’s intervention in the Balkans, but Roman policy in 228 is scarcely likely to have envisaged the idea of dominating or destroying Macedon.

  13 MASSILIA. T. Frank (CAH, vii, 810) assumes that a trilateral treaty was signed by the two parties and a willing Massilia. But A. Schulten, (ibid., 788) believes that Massilia would not welcome Rome’s concessions. Yet had it not been for her alliance with Massilia Rome might have been content to fix the limit of Hasdrubal’s aggressions at the Pyrenees. On Massilian diplomacy see F. R. Kramer, AJPhil., 1948, 1 ff. The further implications of this treaty are discussed on pp. 198 ff.